Just Ask Why
by sifuXANA
Summary: Thalia as a tree-and after. This is my first fic, so please review and help me out! Flames accepted but only if they are constructive. Disclaimer: I don't own Percy Jackson and the Olympians.


No one had ever asked her what it was like to be a tree, and she had never told. In truth, it was like swimming through a thick, heavy ocean, or running through a dream. She had inched through time, and eventually she became so tired that she almost stopped trying.

Sometimes she would feel a presence. She squinted and listened, held silent and still, but she could not make out what it was. The world was a pane of blurry glass.

Even while she was a tree she could feel that day preserved perfectly in her mind. The memory, a slide pressed between the layers of glass, was still fresh, like it had only been minutes ago. She could feel the blood seeping from her chest, could hear the fear and the voices and the pounding of feet. She could picture Luke, his face closed and unbelieving, and Annabeth, afraid, but too young to understand. [Her family, broken and destroyed once again.]

Then later, what felt like forever and still no time at all, something changed. At first, being a tree had been sleepy and slow, comfortable enough that she felt no sense of urgency, her instincts dulled. But now, something prickled deep in her, under her skin. She wanted to cry out, to run. A panic started in her chest. She felt the blood soak her shirt again, the helpless feeling of knowing she was dying but not being able to do anything about it. She wanted to scream.

Her mind became feverish as the pain spread. She saw things that she knew she was imagining, because in her tree state nothing was that clear. She saw Luke, how she remembered him, his easy smile and his smooth words, but his small anger—and she saw, for an instant, that anger blossom and explode, slashing across his face, leaving nothing left that she remembered or knew; he transformed into something she could not bear to look at, something alien, strange and cold.

Then it all shattered and now she saw only grass, a dark sky, stars and her skin felt cooler, disoriented, the discomfort was gone, she saw faces so quiet, no one said a word, it was all so unfamiliar. Nothing went through her mind but that last memory, the monsters and the blood and the hill and Luke's sad, sad face, knowing that she was dying for him. It was on her tongue, "dying…strangest dream…" because it was like a dream, a strange, faraway dream, even though she could feel it still, could feel it like it had happened just a second ago. It was another world. The frightening flash of Luke was gone from her mind, and she did not remember it again until she woke up, once again. She sat straight up in bed. Daylight filtered through a window. Beside her, a blond girl read a book. For a minute nothing registered. She did not know the girl.

The blond girl was Annabeth.

+  
She had been thrust back into time missing years and years. It was all wrong, everything was all wrong, and it felt like she'd been robbed. Everything was confused and muddled, and she didn't see how anything could straighten out again.

+  
But she was Thalia the Hero, after all, and she had to bear up. Thalia the Hero didn't complain, or wallow, or mope. So the sarcasm, the attitude, the general Thalia-ness came back. No matter how right or wrong it felt. And sometimes, it did feel wrong—when she was training in the arena, beating the crap out of Percy, thinking of someone else she used to defeat. When she was talking to Annabeth or Connor Stoll and things she never meant to say would surface. But it didn't matter, because trivial matters like those wouldn't matter to Thalia the Hero, who'd sacrificed her life for her friends.

Or would they?

_+  
His image flashed through her mind again, bloodthirsty and haunting. She gasped. Wild-eyed, instinctively, she said, "Luke!"_

_ It was the look on the blond girl's face—Annabeth's face—that told her everything. The blaze of hate, the consumed Luke, it was true. Her sacrifice had never been enough for him. And she never would. _


End file.
